


Between Saturdays

by cerie



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: College Football, F/M, September 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:13:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not sure how he let her worm back into his heart but she has and he has no fucking idea what to say or do about it that doesn’t risk breaking this fragile thing they’ve built between Saturdays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Saturdays

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag for 2x07 Red Team III

It’s three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and Will isn’t particularly expecting company. Still, someone is getting buzzed up and when the elevator opens and reveals MacKenzie, face puffy and red from crying, he’s not particularly shocked. He feels about the same way but he’s drowning his feelings in beer and college football. Nebraska won, so he’s in a decent mood, and things are looking up for his PAC-12 pick. He’s got Alabama playing now, both televisions screaming over each other in an attempt to be heard. None of it matters now that MacKenzie’s here.

“I fucked everything up,” MacKenzie says and Will shakes his head. “No, not really. We all did. We all missed it. I wanted to have a story to bring in ratings and I got it at the expense of everyone else. Nobody could have known that Dantana would fucking doctor the raw footage.”

He grins a little, mirth that he doesn’t really feel. “Besides, MacKenzie, nobody would have caught that shot clock error but you. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have even known how we fucked it up and who to blame.” She doesn’t seem convinced and he motions her close. She pauses in front of the televisions and squints a little, as if she’s trying to decipher some foreign language. He guesses that rushing statistics _are_ a foreign language to MacKenzie. 

“What is rushing? I don’t think they’re moving very fast. Soccer players run up and down the field the whole game,” she says, wrinkling her nose a bit. Will laughs and shakes his head. “The point is to try and get at least ten yards within four downs. If you get that, you get back to first down, which means you still have possession of the ball.” MacKenzie looks like she vaguely follows all that and then she looks down at a messy sheet of paper he has sitting on the table in front of him. “What on earth is this nonsense, then?”

Will laughs. “Well, I’ve got a team in every conference that I follow, so I drew up brackets to predict how the bowl games are going to run. I’ve got Oregon for the Rose Bowl, Nebraska for the Citrus Bowl and Alabama is probably going to go to the BCS Championship even though I want Notre Dame to. Rudy, and all.” MacKenzie nods and he thinks she gets that part at least. 

“Anyway, Alabama is destroying Arkansas and Oregon is a nonconference game so it’s not like I really need to pay attention to it right now.”

He turns off the televisions in his dining room and crosses over to his couch. There’s a television in here too, inexplicably hidden behind a little wooden panel and Will doesn’t know who the fuck designed his apartment that the TV would be _hidden_ but he guesses that’s an appeal to some people. To his surprise, once he settles on the couch with the Oregon game (there’s no point in watching the fucking Alabama one), MacKenzie settles in next to him and presses into his personal space.

It takes him a moment but he slides his arm around her, inviting her to keep close for a moment. It’s been a long time since he’s done this with MacKenzie and he feels a little vulnerable and out of practice. Still, MacKenzie fits just the way she always had before and as the Ducks decimate Tennessee Tech, she curls into his lap and lays her head against his chest. Sometime in the middle of the third quarter, his hand finds its way into her hair and strokes it lightly. It’s going to be all right. Nothing is going to happen. They’ve retracted Genoa and Leona is fighting for them and there’s nothing wrong at all.

***

He guesses he shouldn’t really be shocked when MacKenzie shows up the next Saturday at around 11 AM, a Notre Dame jersey damn near falling off her and slim jeans that showcase her legs perfectly. He lets her up and they watch football again. He takes the time to explain the plays to her and somehow in the middle of Nebraska v. Idaho State (seriously, they can’t catch a break, those guys), she’s slid into his lap and his hand has found her hair and they’re kissing. It’s been a long time since he’s kissed MacKenzie but it’s not hard to see that they still fit. Will has been with a lot of women over the years but with MacKenzie, it’s like something slides into place and just _fits_ the way it never has with anyone else.

Kissing MacKenzie is like coming home. 

He can vaguely hear in the background that Nebraska has scored again but no matter what his team is doing on the field today, he’s much more interested in MacKenzie. She grinds down into his lap and he gasps into her mouth, catching her lower lip with his teeth and when he pulls away for a half second she’s right there again, mouth hot and messy against his. He slides his hands under the jersey and lays them against her waist; MacKenzie is so small he can damn near span her waist with his hands and her skin is impossibly soft. He wants, more than anything, to get the damn jersey off and move this to the bedroom but he thinks maybe going slow is a good idea. They have the pretense of watching the game to keep them from getting too deep too quickly and MacKenzie naturally slides out of the kiss. She keeps close, though, and Will can’t stop looking at her.

He’s never stopped loving her. He’s never stopped loving the little sprinkle of freckles across her nose or the way her brow furrows when she’s concentrating on something. He loves the way her hair flips a little at the ends and how she walks with her toes turned in just slightly. They’re all strange little things to notice but they’re _MacKenzie_ and they help set her apart from every other anonymous woman he’s been with over the course of his adult life. He’s had some good relationships, sure, but none of them have ever lit a fire under his ass like MacKenzie does and he guesses that’s why it hurt so goddamned much when she cheated on him.

But now they have this thing, football on Saturdays, and Will isn’t sure how far to go without fucking it up. MacKenzie turns a little in his lap and rests her head against his shoulder, watching the game and occasionally piping up with a question or a little bit of commentary that indicates she’s nowhere near as uneducated about football as she pretends to be. She knows what an interception is, after all, and she yells at the screen any time the ref makes a bad call. Actually, she yells at the screen _any_ time the ref shows up but that’s neither here nor there. 

Nebraska turns into Alabama and it’s late when she finally shifts a little on his lap and brushes a kiss against his mouth. “Can I come over next week?” 

Will laughs and tucks a bit of hair back behind her ear. “Sure. We’re playing, uh, Wisconsin. And Alabama is playing Ole Miss. Can’t remember who Oregon is playing. Washington State, I think.” MacKenzie laughs warmly and leans in to kiss him again, soft kisses that are more like sharing breath than actual kissing. God, he loves being intimate with her. He’s not sure how he let her worm back into his heart but she has and he has no fucking idea what to say or do about it that doesn’t risk breaking this fragile thing they’ve built between Saturdays. They don’t acknowledge it during the week, at all, but on Saturday it’s like there’s a safe haven in his apartment where they drink beer and talk football and kiss and kiss and kiss. He never wants it to stop. 

“I’ll be here. Oregon can’t win without me.”

Will is pretty sure that Mariota and the rest of the team can pull through without a skinny English girl cheering for them but he doesn’t say anything because he really, really wants her to come back. He wants her to come over more days than just Saturday but right now, Saturday feels safer than most anything else.

***

Will has his own gameday gear on when MacKenzie shows up the next week in the form of a soft, faded t-shirt that’s a little tight around the middle because it’s from when he was a student at Nebraska thirty years ago and he’s changed a lot since then. MacKenzie thinks it’s sweet that he kept his practice t-shirt from the one semester he dressed with the team before he decided that academics were a hell of a lot more important than trying to play football and dropped the team in favor of just keeping his baseball scholarship instead.

They start with Nebraska and then by the time Alabama starts playing, MacKenzie is in his lap and he’s got his hands under her jersey, cupping her breasts while he kisses her. He doesn’t know what the score is but this seems a hell of a lot hotter and heavier than it’s been in previous weeks and when MacKenzie slides her hands down and catches the hem of her jersey to tug it off, Will is quick to press his lips against her cleavage, kissing all over her breasts and sliding his hands up to flick the catch of her bra. It’s been a long time since he’s seen MacKenzie naked but she’s every bit as beautiful as he remembered from before and he dips his head down to kiss and suck at one nipple; the sound she makes, while soft, seems louder than the cheers on the game. 

She shimmies out of her jeans in something that seems to defy the laws of physics and while Will would have preferred being in bed for their first time in such a long time, it seems fitting that neither of them can wait, that he feels her hot and wet around him even though she’s only pushed her panties and his jeans out of the way and they only have the one point of contact. MacKenzie rocks in his lap and he slides his hand down, tugging up on the panties to increase the friction between them. She grinds down on his dick and he groans, rolling his thumb against her clit and scraping his teeth lightly against her collarbone. She comes first but he’s not long after her, gripping her hips tightly in his hands and rocking up one last time with a strangled little cry. 

MacKenzie collapses against him and buries her face against his neck and even though he’s slipped out of her, he doesn’t move. Instead, he toys with her hair and whispers sweet things against her skin, nonsense mostly, and Alabama scores again and again.

Will doesn’t really give a fuck what the score is.

***

When he comes in on Monday morning, MacKenzie is waiting in his office, face pale and drawn. He’d been feeling pretty good about Saturday and had intended to ask her out for Friday night, to do something other than just watch football and fuck, and he wonders why she’s so upset.

“Fire me. You’re the only one who can do it.”


End file.
